Ambrosia
by Fake Nails Real Hearts
Summary: In a dusty palace, a goddess falls for a mortal. Ty Lee takes a job as a nanny after being disgraced socially and winds up in the employ of the Fire Nation royal family. The married princess takes a lustful interest in her, Ty Lee stumbles into family secrets, and they begin to heal each other as their fates become permanently and disastrously intertwined. [Azula/Ty Lee AU]
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** I bring you my first fanfic, the tale of a dark, sordid affair in a different world, about Azula and Ty Lee.

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_Ambrosia_

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"I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are _this_ yet allow themselves to be treated as _that_."  
Harold and Maude

* * *

Ty Lee had a piercing headache. That was exactly how she remembered the day when she was exposed for her affair. Being branded as a whore was relatively unpleasant, but more unpleasant was the fact that she now had to take care of herself. And despite having more responsibility than most girls her age by being one in a large family, she had no idea how to begin.

She had exactly zero money. Zero. After making lists of the richest Fire Nation teens, she was now without a single copper piece. The married man she destroyed paid for the apartment. She thought he took pity on her. He probably did; she looked innocent, but... there was always a darker side.

Innocence was her specialty. She radiated it, although it was simply not her. Never in her life had she felt like _her_. Like _herself_. Not once. Always, she was looking for some new calling and some new way to belong. Rarely, did it ever happen.

It was in the fog of her headache that she realized she needed a job. It was going to be beyond difficult, seeing as her only skill was honed for either the military or a massage parlor, and Ty Lee could not see herself in either. There had to be _something_. The Fire Nation was the most powerful force in the world. Unemployment was at an all time low. _Something _existed that she could sweet talk her way into.

At least until she found a rich man who was not _already _married and snagged him. That would be her ticket to an easy life. She sighed, glanced at the completely boring and bland apartment she needed to decorate but did not have the means to furnish, and walked out to go search for a job.

There had to be a tea shop or something. She was pretty enough to be a waitress. She was pretty enough to be anything she wanted to be.

Ty Lee walked out onto the beautiful city streets. It was dim and gorgeous tonight, even if the stars were blocked out by all of the smog. She could smell both the ocean and the oil in the streetlamps and even some food being cooked somewhere nearby.

It was a world of opportunities, and there was no way she _couldn't _find one that she would adapt to perfectly. Impossible.

She set out to find work.

_Somehow_.

Meanwhile, Mai stared at her daughter, trying to make sense of her. She was bright and cute and clever, but she was absolutely baffling to one of her two mothers. Both of them, actually, Mai doubts Azula even knows Zurin's birthday... and Azula gave birth to her.

"She needs a new nanny," was what Mai walked in to today. She intended to just make brief contact with her daughter so she did not grow up to hate Mai the way she and Azula resent their mothers. But she wound up realizing she needed to find another employee.

"I don't understand why we can't just go enslave some Earth Kingdom..." Mai trailed off. She did not necessarily need to request the acquiring of slaves. It was probably an inappropriate comment when easily one of the servants looking at her could make it genuinely happen.

Mai was privileged in her youth. Always privileged. But she never had the raw power that she received when she married Azula. Even as a fiancée Mai was impressed by how much opened up to her. It was a rush that lasted very briefly, before Mai realized absolute power was incredibly boring and she would rather just go on with her life without starting another war.

It simply was _on the table _to start another war. If she wanted to.

Zurin looked at Mai with a particularly smug fervor. She seemed as if she knew exactly what a terror she was, and she was proud of it. Of course, she was four years old and presumably could not be _that _evil yet. Even if her mother was Azula. Who was exactly _that _evil. Azula the War Hero who made her daddy so proud with her wickedness, who would chew people up and spit them out just for the taste. And Mai, Mai married her because she knew that if suicide mission after suicide mission did not kill Zuko off, Ozai just would do it himself.

"So what happened to her nanny?" Mai asked, studying Zurin closely. The servants gave her no response so she cocked an eyebrow at her daughter. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." Zurin crossed her arms, chin sticking out slightly. Mai sighed. She loved her child, truly, but Zurin liked to be difficult.

"I'm going to figure out what you did, Zu," Mai stated coldly and Zurin shrugged. Ugh. She was Azula.

And so Mai decided to find out exactly what she was in need of finding a new nanny for her daughter. Presumably from someone less terrified of her response than servants.

_Ty Lee was twelve when she wore lipstick for the first time. It was a coral shade that was difficult to come by in a world dominated by cheap red hues of all levels of toxicity. She had her hair down and it made her slender and young body almost entirely disappear._

_She had stolen it, of course. There was no way her parents would let their promising young daughter walk around with make-up on. She was far too young. But she put on the lipstick. Too much of it. Enough that her mouth tasted vaguely of chalk._

_"Why are you putting that on?" mother had asked and Ty Lee jumped nearly ten feet._

_"Because I'm not as pretty as the other girls," Ty Lee admitted easily. Secrets and facades were never her trade. She dealt in fake smiles and batting of eyelashes._

_Her mother frowned faintly. "What other girls?"_

_"At school," Ty Lee continued, although she was certain her mother did not care. "I just want to be prettier than them. Or at least _as _pretty."_

_"Don't try to grow up so fast," mother said as if it had anything to do with the situation. "You're beautiful. Just not the same as them."_

_"Not the same as them?" It was the first Ty Lee had heard her mother say it, but it was not the first time she had thought it. She did not fit in with the upper-crust Fire Nation. _Colony Trash_. Colony Trash they called her and she looked it. Peachy skin, brunette. Colony Trash. Definitely had some Earth Kingdom mixed in._

_"I can't spell it out for you, Ty," mother said, squirming uncomfortably. She did not want to admit her own displeasure at having her family relocated. "I know you don't necessarily get good grades already, but don't think about putting on lipstick to try to look like one of these girls. Worry about trying to make something of yourself someday."_

_Ty Lee paused. She did not like the idea until she realized that if she made something of herself, all of those girls would pay._

Ty Lee found her first chance at a job in the window of an expensive restaurant. It was pretty, and there were gorgeous paintings and a variety of different butterfly hybrids crafted from metal on the walls. The patrons were all gone and the shopkeeper was closing up.

"Do you want something? I can still serve you if you..."

"I'm actually, uh, I saw the sign in the door. That you're looking for a waitress," Ty Lee said, nodding feverishly.

It would be like an audition. She did many auditions for shows in the Fire Nation and surrounding areas. Although, contortionism, cartwheels and sword-swallowing had little to do with carrying trays of food and taking orders.

She did not nail the audition. Ty Lee left with an invite for a date, but not a job. Which was exactly what got her into this mess in the first place. She was only _casually_ flirty too. Maybe she needed a new haircut or something... perhaps then people would take her seriously.

And so she returned home and decided that she would find a job some other way, before she had the water in her apartment turned off.

In the palace, Mai was enraged. It did not show in the slightest, save for maybe a particularly lethal glint in her eyes. Again. _Again_. Again with Azula. _Again_. She was a thousand times more frustrating than Zuko, because at least Zuko had met consequences for his actions in the past and occasionally valued human life other than his own.

Azula was calmly lying in their bed, thumbing through a book as if she had not done something so terrible. Given, Mai had done plenty of terrible things in her life. She never made the argument that she was ever a particularly moral or upstanding person. But Azula just had the uncanny ability to take being _awful_ to the next level. To a level that should not exist.

"I cannot believe what you did to that girl, Azula," Mai snapped, shutting the door loudly. Azula slammed the cover of her book down on her hand in surprise. "I'm trying to stay out of this, but this has happened before. It's not an okay thing to do. You realize that don't you?"

"Oh, I'm a monster for looking at other people. You've fucked my brother before," Azula snarled but Mai did not stand down or even flinch. "You fucked him while we were together. I have yet to fuck your brother so I think I'm doing well."

"Neither of us is exactly squeaky clean in this relationship, Azula," Mai replied sharply, wanting to rip her teeth into her wife. Her forced wife. And not in the fun way.

"Zurin is probably my niece," Azula said, deciding the accusation even she did not believe would settle the argument. Zurin was too young for it to be the case, and the fact that Zurin was not actually Mai's - that was the official story, and only an idiot or a citizen of the Fire Nation believed the official story. But Azula had told herself that enough times that it had settled down as well as most of her comforting delusions.

"Azula, I don't have a problem with you _looking _at other people. That would be absurd. I have a problem with you getting innocent people executed because you... you just... dig your claws into them or something," Mai sighed, but it was futile.

"I can't believe with all your apathy you have so much fucking _empathy_," Azula snarled, rolling her eyes as if the matter was beneath her. Mai had to admit she was just... tired of the carnage.

"It's not empathy. I just think you're going to be ruling a nation in a handful of decades and you probably should sort out some of your sexual validation issues before you're pointing the army at battles and..." Mai trailed off. She simply did not care enough to continue. It was not like her to try to change Azula unless she was this level of enraged.

Mai sighed yet again, deciding it was not worth her time getting entangled in Azula's madness, and walked into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Not worth it. Not worth it. She stared at her face in the mirror until her cheeks were no longer ruddy and her heart was no longer racing.

This was all an unfortunate incident that Mai would avoid bringing up until she somehow located someone new to care for the child she and Azula had the time for but not the desire for. She brushed Azula's make-up away from the sink and washed her face.

_The first time Azula wore lipstick, she was twelve._

_It was for her mother's funeral. There was no body. She had been styled before and made to look less like a _child _and more like a _princess_. But the first time she wore real lipstick was for her mother's funeral._

_She thought she was supposed to cry or something. It tasted vile against her tongue and she thought mostly about that, but also about how nice she looked in make-up. She always was beautiful. More beautiful than her mother, certainly._

_It was stark red. Not muted to an orange for a child or a little girl. White skin, red lips, raven hair, and she felt naked in the loose dress she never saw again. A burning, empty coffin. Wood. Just wood. _

_She woke up the next morning with red stains on her pillow._

_She woke up without a single thought of the woman who was gone._

Azula slept peacefully as Mai tossed and turned. Of course this would be delegated to her. _Of course_. She was finally getting settled in to this whole being married with a child thing, and then she actually had to act like a parent. There was nothing in the world that could convince her to behave maternally, but she did not exactly trust her wife with it either.

And so, Mai took her own daughter to school the next day. She woke up a good four hours before she usually would roll out of bed. Zurin was impossible to dress. _Impossible_. Mai wondered exactly how much they paid these poor women.

Zurin complained the entire way and Mai finally decided to simply bribe her senseless. The bribery paid off. Mai learned it well from her own parents.

She went for a brisk walk after finally prying her daughter from her arms. _Shiver_. There was love within her for Zurin, but not the desire to ever endure a morning like that again. Children are wonderful when you do not have to do any of the actual grunt work in raising them. Just play with them once in a while and throw them birthday parties.

It was not in Mai's high class lady training to wipe the snot of her daughter onto a napkin. Ick.

_The first time Mai wore lipstick, she was twelve._

_Her mother put it on her before they went to some important political event. Mai had eaten her lips to disrepair. Chewing on her lips, chomping down her nails, sucking on her hair until it turned brittle. Those were all bad habits of a young Mai._

_And so her mother lacquered her nails and painted over her lips with a light orange shade Mai hated. Mai _always _hated orange. She tied her hair up and dotted it with shells and pearls and rubies so that Mai could not force it into her mouth if she tried._

_It was an effective way of both silencing her and keeping her pretty._

_Typical. Typical of her parents._

Ty Lee was roused from bed by a pounding on her door. Ugh. Her sister. She slumped in the doorway with her round eyes half open. This was not pleasant.

"You realize it's mid-afternoon, don't you?" Rei asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm helping you get a job."

"I thought none of you bitches were talking to me anymore after I destroyed that career," Ty Lee said groggily, half understanding the words she said.

"I think you could make a pretty good nanny. You do like mooching off of other people. And the only real requirement is being personable. Go pick up my daughter from school and see if there are any women who look out of place. Be personable and friendly to them. You might get a job. Or at least a friend in a high place instead of... _this_," Rei rattled off as if Ty Lee cared.

"Ugh. You just want me to pick up your kid so you can have the afternoon off," Ty Lee snapped and Rei made a face that revealed that Ty Lee was right. "Fine. At least I like kids," she sighed, adding quietly as she went into her room to get dressed, "would rather have a poodle-monkey, though."

Bending to people's will was one of Ty Lee's most notorious personality qualities. And it was so easy to exploit that she found herself at a needlessly selective preschool, sighing and waiting for her niece. Someday, she would learn how to say no. It was a skill she genuinely needed to pick up.

And then she saw an out of place woman. Out of place like, the wife of the crown princess out of place.

Maybe Rei wasn't so off base. Befriending royalty was not a bad idea at all.

Ty Lee approached her.

Azula was out of an all day war meeting early because it ended in what possibly could have been a massacre were the man in question not a firebender capable of blocking an assault. It was an interesting afternoon, certainly, but Azula was undeniably exhausted.

"Who's she?" was all Azula could fathom when she saw Mai talking awkwardly to a very _unawkward _girl.

"She could possibly be the nanny of our daughter, Azula," Mai said slowly, giving a signal with her eyes that was begging Azula to free her from the conversation. The princess wondered how long it had gone on.

"Why don't I interview you?" Azula suggested to the woman, who looked about her age. Mai gave her the most grateful expression Azula thought her face was capable of making.

"That sounds awesome." The girl leapt up with unnatural grace as Azula gestured towards a room that was not in use.

This would be quite interesting.

"I'm, well, you obviously know who I am, there's no need for that. Who are you?" started the interview. Ty Lee swallowed, blinking three times fast.

"I'm Ty Lee."

"Hm, yes. Why do you want to be in close proximity to my heir?" Azula purred with confidence and a tone that was both terrifying and intriguing.

"What?" Ty Lee stammered in response.

"Don't make me repeat myself. I never repeat myself." Azula's golden eyes glittered, as if she gained some sadistic pleasure from this meeting.

"Oh, uh. Well, I need a job and I like kids and my niece goes to her school so I just ran into, uh, M-Princess Mai and all..." Ty Lee was rubbing her neck uncomfortably. Azula quite liked how she had already broken out into a sweat.

"That's a good reason of any," Azula said and Ty Lee looked immensely relieved. "Are you in a relationship?"

"What?"

"Don't say what again."

"Wha─I mean, _no_, I'm not in a relationship. Nothing will at all interfere with my job I _completely _promise." Ty Lee decided at that moment that if she gets this job, her two bosses will be absolute lunatics.

"That's good." The look in the crown princess's eyes was disconcerting to Ty Lee, but she was desperate. Without even a bronze piece to her name, she needed this job, regardless of the fact that she felt as if she was being stripped down by golden eyes. In the sexual way.

"So, I'm open to start whenever?" Ty Lee hoped it was not too pushy.

"You can start now." Azula shrugged. She liked the new girl.

"Did you have a nanny before?" Ty Lee asked as Azula gestured for her to walk by her side.

"Oh, yes."

"Did she quit?"

"Oh, no. She was executed."

Ty Lee's foot skidded slightly on the hardwood floor.

She might not have been in the best situation.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a dim, quiet night in the royal palace. The war raged, and somewhere out there Earth Kingdom children were dying, Zuko was probably clinging on to life despite his father trying to be rid of him at all costs, and Azula, well, Azula was stripping off the clothes she wore during the war meetings and eyeing her wife with occasional frustration.

"You're still upset about that servant girl, aren't you?" Azula sighed, as she lied down in she and Mai's bed. They were utterly exhausted from a political event. "I'll stop altogether if it makes you happy."

Lies, of course. But Mai found in her life that agreeing with Azula was the only way to keep from dying an untimely death of stress. No matter how ridiculous her words were, Mai would always simply agree. Easier, less tightness of the chest involved.

"I don't think you can stop," Mai replied honestly and Azula slipped under the blankets.

"Why not?" Azula demanded softly, cocking an eyebrow.

"You develop sexual obsessions," Mai explained with a sigh. She closed her eyes and wished that they would both just go to sleep instead of confronting Azula's incredible, terrible issues. But, then again, she _did _start it.

"I don't develop _sexual obsessions_. If you're jealous tell me. I can be jealous too," Azula said regally as if it were such a consolation. Mai sighed and Azula wished that she would not.

"There's not a problem with it. I guess," Mai murmured, not knowing why she was trying. She lingered for a moment on her book. Azula was staring at the ceiling pointlessly.

Mai crept through the sheets towards Azula, trying to remember if there ever was a spark, or a certain moment. It distracted her thoughts slightly as Azula turned to her and their lips met. It was slow and hesitant, as neither knew if the other genuinely wanted it. Mai's lips trailed down Azula's neck and the princess inhaled slowly. The room smelled entirely of Azula's perfume, but Mai did not.

"I wouldn't mind having a sexual obsession with you," Azula murmured with a truly twisted smirk. Her hand was on Mai's waist as she slipped on top of her. Mai was almost relieved that she had less to do, and then she felt guilty about it.

Azula slowly slipped down Mai's thin sleeves, revealing her shoulders and then some. It felt almost medical, in a way that made Mai feel less aroused than she was when it began. More guilt. Maybe that was why Azula could not keep her hands to herself. Because something between them was dead.

Azula's rouge lips touched Mai's clavicle, and then her left breast. The heat was slow but it would not subside. Not without more.

_The first time Mai realized she liked girls was the first time she slept with Azula. It came on very quickly, before she had even registered anything else. _

_Mai was fourteen and engaged to Zuko at the time. She was in Azula's room, in her bed, braiding her hair and wondering what normal girls, unlike them, were like. Maybe she was attracted to Azula, maybe she was not. _

_Azula leaned back after her hair was completed. Mai watched the rise and fall of her chest with too much interest. She had heard about Azula and the girl she slept with before the girl subsequently disappeared. Mai imagined Ozai would have the same reaction to a boy, but it was evident that Azula was not interested in men._

_People asked Mai if she was a lesbian or not. The answer was always no. She had slept with Zuko enough times to be confident in her sexuality._

_But of course she could question it. And of course when things slowly evolved that night, Mai did not bother to stop them. She enjoyed the touch in a way she had not experienced before. And when Zuko was banished, she may have been sad to see him go, but that night, she was pulled back into the arms of a girl who would be bound to chew her up and spit her out._

_Yet, Mai wanted more. And more. And more._

_She decided she was fine with sleeping with a woman for the rest of her life._

_Azula's touch made it worth it._

"That's what you're wearing to your first day of work? As a _nanny_?" Rei asked, her eyebrows nearly touching her hair. Ty Lee spun around pointedly. She was quite proud of her outfit. "That skirt is... and you really think a top like that is appropriate for children? You look like you're going to a sexy maid competition."

"I like it," Ty Lee replied sharply, crossing her arms. "I was disowned and I can do whatever I want now."

"Yes, perhaps you can regain your social status by ruining another marriage. And this time, you won't just ruin a general, you'll wind up destroying the Fire Nation while you're at it," Rei said smugly in response and Ty Lee mentally throttled her.

"I don't think either of them is interested in me," Ty Lee replied earnestly and Rei _almost _believed her. "I feel pretty in this and I want to feel pretty. That's the end of that."

Ty Lee stopped and looked around for a moment. It was an apartment that she never got the chance to decorate. It was disgusting, albeit in an upper class neighborhood. She decided as she handed Rei two of her suitcases and seized the other three, she would not miss this place one bit.

_The first time Ty Lee realized she liked girls was when she was thirteen. She was sitting in class in her boring colony trying to focus but not doing well. Math was not her strong suit and she was thinking deeply and intensely about the boy across the street who she was determined to make fall in love with her._

_He was perfect and dreamy and looked stunning. And he was bound to be a soldier._

_But Ty Lee was looking at her best friend and thinking that she was equally dreamy and perfect and stunning. Everything changed in a pivotal moment that might as well have slapped her in the face._

_An all girl's school, she decided, was the reason. She was terrified of the thought of falling in love with someone who was not easy. Who was not as predictable as a boy. That she was fairly different from everyone else in a multitude of ways._

_She fell in love with her best friend. And she lived to regret it. She was twelve when she first told her that she was in love with her, and she almost instantly regretted it. It did not go over well._

_"You're not in love with me, anyway. You're in love with the idea of me," she said and Ty Lee realized she was right. "I guess I should've noticed."_

_Ty Lee never had a crush that she did not put on an unrealistic pedestal. It felt best to think that the person she was in love with was inhumanly perfect. It ended several friendships, both with girls and boys._

_And Ty Lee would fall in love again and again and every time know that she was doing more worshipping than loving._

Ty Lee arrived on her first day and suddenly felt self conscious of her outfit. She was several years younger than her superiors, who were dressed far more conservatively. But perhaps, Ty Lee hoped, it was merely because of age.

"Are you a slave or someone accompanying the heir to the throne to social events?" asked the woman Ty Lee figured out through trial and error she was supposed to report to.

"Excuse me?" Ty Lee chirped, baffled.

"You slump when you walk, you dress like you belong in a brothel, not a palace, and you stare at the ground when you're walking. Are you afraid you'll lose your feet if you don't keep an eye on them?" There was a brief silence as Ty Lee's eyes widened and her lips shrank and trembled. The elderly woman had a momentary flicker of compassion on her hardened features. "I'm Chou. I'm in charge of the servants in the palace. I've been doing it for forty years now."

"That's impressive," Ty Lee said earnestly. She had not stuck to something for more than five minutes, save for her expansive military training and while practicing for her performances. But both elite forces and freakshow do not fit in very well with the structured, gilded royal palace.

"I'll show you where you're staying," Chou said and Rei left Ty Lee with her suitcases and bolted. Ty Lee gulped and followed Chou into the palace.

Ty Lee's bedroom was nice. Very nice. It was even more ornate and gilded than her childhood bedroom, which was surprising. She lived in what once was a palace in the Earth Kingdom, washed over with Fire Nation memorabilia. But they lived like royalty in the colonies, before being outcasts with too much money in the homeland.

"Do you like it?" Chou inquired and Ty Lee knew she had to assent.

She laid out her suitcases and decided to unpack later. Chou guided her to Zurin's room, which was humongous and over decorated. The plethora of toys was more than Ty Lee had ever seen in one place. And few of them were dolls, Ty Lee noted. Quite different from her childhood.

"This is Zurin. I'll be with you today," Chou said as Ty Lee saw a little girl with a fervor in her golden eyes. She did not look pleased about Ty Lee, which made this all the more daunting.

"It's nice to meet you, Zurin," Ty Lee offered weakly.

The child did not respond.

Many hours later, Ty Lee was grateful when Zurin was finally asleep. She walked out into the courtyard, ready to stretch or practice, to somehow release the immense frustration. This job was not as easy as she thought it would be. But she knew she had to make do somehow. It _was _nice to be living in the palace.

She slipped into the courtyard, cracking her knuckles, and was met by streaks of cerulean across the crisp night air. Ty Lee walked closer before realizing she had just interrupted the princess in the middle of assaulting a steel target. It was _red _from sheer heat.

"I'm sorry," Ty Lee stammered as Azula looked up and saw her.

The princess's body shined with a light coat of glistening sweat. Ty Lee averted her eyes like she was supposed to, but Azula was walking towards her.

If Ty Lee had listened to what her mother said, she would be at home, not here, in this situation. But she was young and as dumb as they mocked her for being, and she let a charming man lead her away. And now she stood and felt exactly as she did when she realized she was in too deep with her boyfriend.

The princess looked brilliant in the starlight, but her eyes were fixated on Ty Lee. She suddenly wished she had listened to her sister and changed her clothes. Perhaps tiny bright pink dress was not the best choice, as she felt twice as exposed.

"So how was my daughter?" Azula asked, walking inside and Ty Lee breathed a sigh of relief. She was worried the princess would just keep staring with her piercing golden eyes.

"Um, alive," Ty Lee offered and Azula suppressed laughter. It was not the answer she was expecting, but it would do. "She's asleep now and I was just... well... I was just going outside to practice before bed. I didn't know you were..."

"It's not a crime to run into me. Or am I just that scary?" Azula had an amused smirk painted on her face and Ty Lee was blushing as pink as her dress.

"You're pretty scary." Ty Lee paused, her eyes flickering wide for a split second. "In a good way. In a good way."

"I know," was Azula's reply. "What are you practicing?"

"I was trained for the elite forces in the military," Ty Lee explained hastily, wanting out more desperately than she had ever wanted something.

"Yet you're a nanny?" Azula cocked an eyebrow, suddenly intrigued. The girl just looked like a pretty face, but clearly there was more to her.

"It doesn't bother me. War isn't really my speed anyway," Ty Lee said, feeling breathless.

"It's a pretty nasty thing," Azula said honestly, though with a hint of pleasure in her seductive tone.

"It's really nice out tonight. Just look at the moon," Ty Lee said uncomfortably, her adept social skills failing her.

"I never look at the sky. There's so much going on down here," Azula purred and Ty Lee inhaled sharply. The princess smirked at the small breath of fear.

"There is, isn't there?" Ty Lee murmured, hoping agreeing with Azula would help. The situation seemed futile to her.

"Like us, right now. I think that this is far more interesting than how the clouds fall over the moon," Azula said slowly, walking closer to Ty Lee. They could feel the heat rising from each other's bodies at that point. "You seem interesting. What did you do before you wound up caring for my daughter?"

"I kind of circus," Ty Lee said, the words making no sense. But Azula was undeterred.

"I see. Well, that's a much more interesting career." Azula said nothing for a moment. They were far too close and Ty Lee did not know what to do. "You look terrified."

Ty Lee examined her hands and realized just how hard they were shaking. Now she looked absolutely ridiculous. She coasted so easily through life, through any situation. But she thought she had found a weakness. Azula just obliterated the confidence of her child's caretaker.

"I'm not normally so... jumpy," Ty Lee offered, blushing again. Azula was studying her as if she was some kind of expensive bauble or intriguing painting.

Azula took Ty Lee's hand and Ty Lee blinked several times. This was already not going well. The princess studied the quavering fingertips she had in her grasp. Ty Lee watched how Azula's nails glinted in the light, and how her hands calmed slightly under the princess's warm touch. Her hands were hot in the cold night.

"I heard about you and that general," Azula said and Ty Lee's heart skipped a beat. "It's funny how fragile a career is. Mine, however, well, I was born with it."

And before Ty Lee could say anything, Azula had leaned forward and touched her lips to Ty Lee's neck. Her shoulders briefly shot up from the surprising contact, but they softened as Azula moved her crimson lips to Ty Lee's cheekbone.

Ty Lee was both glad of it and horrified. Glad of it because being guided to a stone bench by possibly the most attractive woman Ty Lee had ever met was thrilling, horrified because said woman was married and also the daughter of the Fire Lord. Why does Ty Lee get herself into these situations?

She was laid on her back before she could say anything. Yet as Azula slid up the light pink skirt, sharp fingernails brushing along the insides of Ty Lee's thighs and leaving her wet, Ty Lee jumped up, sending the princess stepping backwards quickly.

"I can't do this," Ty Lee said loudly before covering her mouth. She should not have argued. _Ugh_, this was going to get her exiled, executed or fired, and she did not know which was worse.

"You don't have to." Azula shrugged, although something in her eyes looked offended. Ty Lee's heart was beating out of her chest as she escaped the situation with less social grace than she was trained to use. Mostly by running back to her bedroom.

Azula looked after her and decided simply that she would have her one way or another regardless.

Hmph. Maybe Mai was right about the sexual obsession thing.

_The first time Azula realized she liked girls, it was when she met her first girlfriend. Also known as a servant in the palace. She was Azula's age and while Azula never associated with people who were beneath her, she became incredibly intrigued by the girl who waited on Azula hand and foot._

_It was maybe the way she curled her lip when she concentrated or the curvature of her breasts, or maybe the fact that she had to do whatever Azula said under pain of death. It evolved into a relationship when Azula decided to make it evolve into a relationship._

_"I really like you," she said softly and Azula knew it was true. She did not need to be told it but she liked to be told._

_But Azula for some reason felt compelled to say, "I like you too."_

_They kissed and touched and it was vaguely beautiful. Azula had to admit she was becoming enamored or infatuated with the girl. Lips and whispers in a nearly vacant palace._

_But one day, she was gone. They did not meet at midnight as they intended to. Azula waited for her, feeling ridiculous. She waited for hours and hours, but slowly it dawned on her. And it was painful and enraging to the point that she simply wanted to burn the entire Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes to ashes. But slowly she coped._

_Azula never saw her again._

Azula went to see Zurin before she went to bed. She was still flushed from attempting to fuck Ty Lee, and it not going well. But she found her daughter not asleep, of course, but reading in the dark.

"Why are you here?" Zurin looked genuinely baffled.

"Just to check on you," Azula said and it was mostly true. Zurin studied her mother closely before nodding. Azula knelt beside her and brushed her hair out of her face. "Do you like your new nanny?"

"Yes. She's really fun," Zurin said and Azula was startled. Zurin had only ever complained about anyone Azula and Mai got to take care of her.

This girl was intriguing. A soldier, performer and the only nanny Zurin had ever liked. Azula knew she had to have her regardless of what Mai _or _Ty Lee thought.

Azula gently tucked her daughter in, although she was never good at it, and went to sleep silently beside her wife.

Ty Lee was awake all night, staring at the ceiling and clutching a pillow to her chest.


	3. Chapter 3

Ty Lee sobbed to Chou when she woke up in the middle of the night. She was not one for crying, _ever_, and she prided herself on seeing the silver lining in every situation. But she felt weakened and violated and also confused, because she did have a bit of a crush on Azula, yes.

But she did not ask for those sharp fingernails sliding up her thighs as she was locked in fear.

"What's wrong, dear?" Chou asked and she sounded much kinder than she was when she was ordering Ty Lee around. She woke when she heard the girl so upset, and did realize that Ty Lee was probably having a hard time getting settled in a life as a servant when she once was a rich noble girl.

"She... I don't know..." Ty Lee blushed furiously as she struggled to form the words. She did not know how she was supposed to _phrase _it. "Princess Azula, she just... she kind of..."

"She came onto you?" Chou inquired, laughing at that. "I thought this was much more serious."

"B-b-much more serious?" Ty Lee blathered, startled at Chou's reaction.

"She's just toying with you. She loves her wife," Chou said, although her voice faltered slightly in the last sentence. Ty Lee was not good with expressions, and even she could tell that Chou was lying without trying to hide it. "She probably won't do it again. I was worried it was the Fire Lord. You're pretty good with Zurin and I would be yanking my hair out if you got pregnant."

Ty Lee rubbed her nose, not understanding. Her mother had complained before about her father having wandering affections when she could not hear anyone in the house. Infidelity was just a part of aristocratic life in the Fire Nation.

"So, because she can't get me pregnant, it's not a big deal?" Ty Lee whispered, her wide, sparkling eyes like saucers.

"It'll work out." And Chou quickly dismissed the fact that Ty Lee was in so much pain and confusion.

_Welcome to the world of being a servant instead of a noble_, Ty Lee had to admit to herself.

It made her feel sick, but she went back to bed and got enough sleep to be able to take care of Zurin in the morning.

_The first time Azula figured out what royals did behind closed doors was when she walked in on her father and a servant girl giving him oral sex._

_ She was six or seven at the time and it utterly confused her in so many ways. He tried, feebly, to explain it to her later, but his efforts were somewhat futile. It stuck in Azula's mind for years, and remained there as she became an adult and her own desires began to wander beyond just Mai._

_ Perhaps she did not blame him, perhaps she did._

"Why can't we have a discussion without getting into an argument?" demanded a gravelly voice behind the door Ty Lee was trying to inconspicuously pass.

She was carrying a basket of Zurin's laundry that Chou told her to go take to the servants downstairs while Zurin was at school. The morning had been unpleasant; Ty Lee was incredibly not used to waking up early. When she worked for the circus in the city she worked nights, and maybe rolled out of bed in the afternoon to go practice before the night's show.

Her life revolved around moonlight, unlike the sun of the Fire Nation's royal family. Then, exhausted, she somehow managed to get Zurin ready for school. The girl was more amicable the second day than the first, and Ty Lee was relieved that things were getting easier and not harder, especially after what happened with Azula.

"You're the one complaining all the time. I don't complain about you," Azula snarled and Ty Lee stood in the hallway very still. She was genuinely afraid that if she was noticed, things would unravel.

They were fighting. The lovely crown princess and her beautiful bride. Ty Lee was at the wedding, not that either of them paid her any mind. Her father was useful to Ozai and so his family was invited. She wound up going home with some boy she just met, and did not think twice about the princess who now seemed to be sexually interested in Ty Lee.

Ty Lee remembered the announcements of the birth of Zurin, and claims that Azula was perfect despite the pregnancy, but Ty Lee noticed so much of Mai in Zurin that it felt odd to her. She was not exactly certain _who _was the birth mother of Zurin, nor did she need to know.

"I ignore _so much_, Azula," Mai said sharply and Ty Lee did not want to move. "You think I honestly approve of half of what you do? I mean, I'm morally questionable but I'm not that bad. No one wants to play your twisted games, especially not me."

"I don't want to play games with you," Azula said, more quietly that time. "I love you and I hope you know that."

Mai sighed and Ty Lee felt a mild rush of relief. "I know. I love you too. You just don't like to make things easy on me, do you?"

"Well, that would be awfully boring," Azula purred and they were both silent after that. "I'm the only thing that makes your life interesting." Her voice was slightly breathless; Ty Lee could tell they had exchanged a particularly forceful kiss.

And with that, she scampered away with the laundry. Her intrigue into the marriages she often destroys was a negative quality of her personality. But if Azula did truly love Mai, Ty Lee would be in a world of trouble if she responded. Maybe it was a test.

The other servants in the palace refused to talk about Princess Azula, but they were terrified. Something about Azula was more frightening to them than Fire Lord Ozai himself, and Ty Lee could already agree after only a week of working for the royal family of the Fire Nation.

Ty Lee returned to Zurin's room after delivering the laundry, her thoughts still racing with overhearing Mai and Azula's fight. And then their subsequent making up. Ty Lee felt that aching sensation of getting herself into more trouble than she could manage.

She cleaned up the room, washing the toys, preparing everything for Zurin's return from classes. As she was kneeling on the red carpet, cleaning a small stain that was trying to get the best of her, the princess brushed by. Ty Lee tried to turn invisible, but Azula stepped two steps backwards and entered her daughter's room.

"So how are you settling in?" Azula murmured, shutting the door behind her. "I have to apologize for... coming on to you."

An apology for the princess was... unexpected to Ty Lee. It seemed like the kind of thing royals would get used to doing.

"I don't really need an apology," and Ty Lee hoped Azula would not take that as a rude rejection. But the princess just made a hmph sound in the back of her throat. Ty Lee's stomach twisted into knots as she tried to figure out what it could possibly mean.

Azula licked her lips in a way that both made Ty Lee tingle slightly and then hate herself for it. The princess sat down on Zurin's bed, examining a stuffed dragon closely. It was hard to imagine the formidable Princess Azula as a mother. Ty Lee supposed that was why she had nannies for Zurin.

"I know. I shouldn't have treated you as a slave girl. You are of noble lineage and your situation... well, I don't pity people. Only the weak pity people or allow themselves to be pitied. But I am openly apologizing, and hope that will be the end of this," Azula said softly and Ty Lee nodded once. Her eyes glittered in a way that Azula found enticing.

Her _innocence_. Her _innocence _was beyond intriguing. Azula just wanted to corrupt her, wanting to dominate her.

"Well, Zurin likes you. So I suppose I'll keep my hands to myself," Azula purred and Ty Lee felt like there were layers to her words that Ty Lee could not quite comprehend.

"Can I-uh, can I ask something that's probably way out of line," Ty Lee said quietly, her gut lurching with the fear of asking Azula this.

"Nothing is stopping you. _But _nothing is stopping my reaction, which can be volatile," she said and Ty Lee found it strange how her words could be so sophisticated yet threaten brutality with every syllable. It was intoxicating. And dangerous.

"Which of you had Zurin?" Ty Lee asked and Azula laughed. It was high and cold yet it made something within Ty Lee's core burn like frostbite, or some cross between fear and arousal that made her skin prickle.

"Is it that hard to guess?" Azula breathed and Ty Lee nodded. Azula supposed it was, and it was meant to be that way. "I did," Azula said, supposing that honesty would not hurt. "And that's all you need to know, and I wouldn't take kindly to asking about my family again."

Professional yet volatile. Ty Lee just gulped and returned to cleaning as Azula walked away.

_The first time Ty Lee realized what noble people were allowed to do was when her father secured the entire family with seats at a restaurant that was booked for months and they did not have a reservation at._

_ Furthermore, the way the waitstaff were treated was probably worse than the Fire Nation soldiers in the Earth Kingdom treat the peasants. It made Ty Lee feel powerful, although she was too young to truly understand._

_ When she was older, she felt so much regret for enjoying stomping on those below her._

Ty Lee called upon Rei to go out to lunch on her first day off. Mai was spending the day with Zurin and her old friend, and Chou told Ty Lee to get lost because Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Azula were having secret war meetings all day.

"So you're telling me that she's into you? _You_? The circus freak," Rei said and Ty Lee breathed in very slowly. Of course she would be subjected to this. _Of course._

"Yes. And I... I don't know what to do," Ty Lee said, setting her elbows on the table and her chin in the palms of her hands.

"She's dangerous. There are a lot of lunatics out there, and she's going to get obsessed with you," Rei said, sipping her tea as if Ty Lee's problem were nothing. "I would quit before it gets out of hand."

"Yeah, I'll quit and live on the streets. There's a good suggestion." Ty Lee was not a sarcastic person, but Rei had _no _idea what Ty Lee was going through. That she had _no _money to fall back on, and no place to stay if she left the palace.

"Then avoid her. You don't like your boss hitting on you, either get a new boss, or try not to get hit on," Rei said and Ty Lee sighed. This was a waste of time.

Ty Lee left before her food was even served, and Rei just shook her head in response. It was at that moment that Ty Lee realized she had absolutely _no _desire to associate with people who would rather see her as a servant than their family just because of an affair.

It made her angry, and she spent the rest of the day just walking around Caldera, wandering aimlessly.

_The first time Mai learned what people in dignified positions could do, it was when her parents were drafting a marriage contract for her with Prince Zuko. Mai did not quite understand the implications of it, but she figured there was nothing she could do to stop it._

_ They had made their decision, and they knew that as soon as they birthed a daughter, she would be of great political use to them. Mai wanted to be a soldier. She dreamt of being a Yuyan Archer, or perhaps a spy in espionage in Ba Sing Se._

_ But, instead, she would be a prince's wife._

_ It... was complicated._

A week passed without anything strange happening between Ty Lee and Azula. Ty Lee did not know if she was relieved or just unhappy about it. These conflicted feelings were utterly excruciating.

It was at the end of that week when Ty Lee was singing Zurin a lullaby. Zurin claimed, at first, that she hated lullabies, but she did allow Ty Lee to do it. And Zurin wound up liking it in the end, wrapping herself in her silk blankets and listening intently.

Ty Lee gently tucked her in and left, only to overhear incredible commotion in the corridor outside of the throne room. She knew she might be stringing herself up by going to investigate, but she had to know. _Had _to know.

She did not recognize the man walking out the throne room at first. It was only when he turned his face and she saw his scar did she know that it was Prince Zuko.

_Prince Zuko_, who was banished. The fact that he was in the Fire Nation again was troubling.

Ty Lee ran as Azula looked for the source of scuffling footsteps and Ozai gestured for them both to come into the throne room. It must have been a family matter. Ty Lee _knew _it was a family matter, and she just served the royal family.

But she did ache with curiosity.

That night, Ty Lee was in her bedroom when Azula walked in. She looked Ty Lee up and down and Ty Lee felt so exposed, so naked.

"My brother is back," Azula said, and Ty Lee tried to act surprised. "My brother is back and... and I want you to make me feel better."

Her words were not layered in violence; they were now layered with sex. Ty Lee could feel that. And the thought that she had known Azula for less than a month was not problematic; Ty Lee was a fan of one night stands. It was the fact that Azula was not someone she wanted to get tangled with, not at all.

Ty Lee was in her pajamas ─ loosest, most comfortable red shirt and only red lace underwear. The level of exposed she felt was high as she ran her eyes up and down the silk robe Azula wore. They were both, open, both silken, both soft. And Ty Lee wanted to touch her but also could not bring herself to get involved. The princess was dangerous and messing with her family was dangerous.

Azula walked to her, shutting the door with a click. Ty Lee could only think of their encounter, in which Azula tried to come on to her and Ty Lee wanted only to escape. But now she wanted it, now she felt something inside of her that craved what was terrible for her.

Ty Lee sat there in bed, unsure what to do, as Azula moved to her and straddled her. It was breathless, leaning towards tender although there was a malevolent gleam in Azula's golden eyes. Azula slid her hands up the loose cotton shirt and rested on Ty Lee's bare breasts.

Her hands and fingers and sharp nails pressed down, to the response of an uncontrollable moan from Ty Lee's lips. The princess responded with a small smirk, clearly aroused by it as well. Azula kissed Ty Lee's neck and her lips burnt like the fire she could bend.

Azula's hands strayed, brushing across her, explorative, beneath Ty Lee's shirt, covering her body in gooseflesh. Her lips collided with Ty Lee's skin again and Ty Lee moaned, hoping no one could hear. Unless this was heard regularly; unless she was not as special as she thought she was.

When Azula's lips touched Ty Lee's lips, their tongues moved together and Azula's pressed against the inside of Ty Lee's cheek. It was rough, violent and Ty Lee enjoyed it, her gasps intertwined with Azula's breath, her moans swallowed by red lips.

Azula's hips grinded against her. It felt as good as it felt wrong. There was a burning in Ty Lee's slit that she could not control, nor did she want to control.

Their lips pressed together again and again and again. And Azula felt her and felt her before pulling Ty Lee down on top of her. Ty Lee was baffled; she did not want to be on the princess. That was... that was bad.

It was only from sharp nails brushing along her neck and back that gradually made Ty Lee realize what Azula was expecting her to do. And... Ty Lee had never done that before. She had a variety of types of sex ─ some she was nearly ashamed of ─ but sex with a woman was not something she had even ever thought about.

"Go on," Azula whispered in her ear and her hot breath on Ty Lee's neck made the aching intensify.

Ty Lee slipped down on her, her lips trailing over her navel as Azula withheld a moan. It was with fear pounding in her heart as much as the fiery blood of arousal that she did as the princess asked. The sound of her orgasm was not frightening, as Ty Lee imagined it would be.

It made her burn all the brighter.

Ty Lee moved, kissing Azula's neck, but the princess was slipping away. All the servant could do was blink as Azula fumbled with her clothes, leaving halfway through. Was she _actually _leaving halfway through?

Or maybe it was over for her. Ty Lee was so clueless and in so much agony.

And Azula was gone, as if perhaps she was a ghost. Ty Lee lay down in her bed and tried to process what happened, but her thoughts were only filled with sex. Her fingers traced down her body and she gave herself pleasure, as her thoughts flickered with Azula and not their normal repertoire.

_"She's dangerous. There are a lot of lunatics out there, and she's going to get obsessed with you," Rei said, sipping her tea as if Ty Lee's problem were nothing. "I would quit before it gets out of hand."_

The memory burned, but it did not burn as much as Ty Lee's unresolved longing.

Azula slipped into bed beside Mai and Mai could feel the sex radiating from her. It made Mai grit her teeth, but she showed no emotion. Whomever was the subject of Azula's affection was only going to be used like tissues and tossed aside, and Mai was there to stay.

Whether she liked it or not.

And Mai was plagued by thoughts of Zuko.

"What's your father even playing at by bringing him home?" Mai asked, her eyes flickering up and down Azula's clearly satisfied body.

"I'm trying to figure that out. I think Zuko is even more confused than we are," Azula sighed, her eyes fluttering with the desire to go to sleep.

Zuko's return was immensely troubling to Azula, but she knew she was on top.

She would be Fire Lord.

Oh yes, oh yes.


End file.
